British Isles Cup Redux - FINALS - Whitley vs RZSS

Both of these collections came out of the qualification rounds pretty strongly, so this match should hopefully be quite an interesting one. The categories we are playing with this time are HOOFSTOCK and TEMPERATE/BOREAL FOREST

To save any repetetive questions once we get going, the latter category is NOT restricted to mammals, and one *does* have to consider both categories at hand I look forward to plenty of discussion and argument in the days ahead!

 

I'll be honest - for this one I am going to toss my hat into the ring from the word GO

I think it's pretty much a massive win for RZSS here, between the vast array of exceptionally good hoofstock exhibits at HWP (along with a fair few rather nice hoofstock exhibits at Edinburgh, too), several of which *also* fit into the temperate/boreal forest category, alongside a large number of non-hoofstock taxa which (at both collections) are located in good-to-excellent exhibits. The European Wolf and Siberian Tiger exhibits at HWP are the best I have seen anywhere for either taxon, for instance, and the new exhibit for Giant Panda at Edinburgh is (I must admit, despite not caring for the species overmuch) spacious and pleasant, with plenty of climbing opportunities available for the inhabitants.

Moreover, the conservation efforts of RZSS in these categories are also pretty notable - especially their offshow breeding complex for Amur Leopard at HWP, the breeding efforts for Scottish Wildcat both ex-situ at both collections and in dedicated facilities elsewhere for reintroduction purposes, similar breeding and reintroduction efforts for European Beaver, and involvement in the captive breeding and reintroduction of the critically endangered Pine Hoverfly.

I'm not sure whether I will ultimately vote 5-0 or 4-1 RZSS at present; Whitley does have a fair few nice hoofstock species of their own, but the question is whether they hold up enough against all that RZSS can offer - especially given I think they have very little in the way of Temperate/Boreal forest representation - in order to earn a point or not?

 

At the moment I've parked myself at 5-0 but hope we have people coming along to make the case for the additional point for Whitley!

 

Would you really say that merely holding these two species makes them worthy of a point? As far as I can see, the wiggle room with whether one thinks Whitley merit a point or not is in how well one thinks they compare to RZSS in terms of hoofstock. Were this one of the qualifying matches, and the category had been temperate/boreal alone, I suspect it would have been an immediate and unanimous clean sweep for RZSS!

 

Couldn't think of any of their programmes which fall under this category - which ones do you know of?

 

Although a very notable charitable organisation in terms of conservation work and fundraising, the Whitley Fund for Nature is an entirely different and unrelated organisation to the Wild Planet Trust (formerly the Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust) - the former was started by Edward Whitley in 1991, whilst the latter was started in the 1950s after the founder of Paignton Zoo, Herbert Whitley, passed away in order to continue his work.

Herbert Whitley *was* a very distant cousin of Edward Whitley, both belonging to a historical brewing family, but the two organisations are unconnected otherwise - in fact I have had my suspicions in the past that the rebranding to Wild Planet Trust was in order to avoid confusion with a similarly named organisation also working in the conservation sector.

 

It's not *that* good from memory though their presence is definitely one of the highlights of the Whitley hoofstock collection, along with the wildebeest.

If a shared name automatically meant a link between individuals and collections, I'd be able to take control of a certain UK zoo